Connect With Your Kids While Attacking Gremlins

Technology can be great for many things; like teaching kids how to code, making a photo look hilarious, and especially brilliant for playing games with your children – if they’re into that kind of thing. In some cases, this could be the very thing that brings parents closer to their children.

As Ben writes in a guest post below, quality time is about prioritising what our children would like to do with us, over what we’d like to do. Warning to dads: sometimes your kids will simply want to go swimming. And when in France, doing so with bravado in those underwhelming Speedo briefs. But at other times, rather less alarmingly, playing your child’s favourite digital game is on request. Truth be told, we all love a good game don’t we? And sometimes we just need to give ourselves permission to rediscover the joys of playing again. It makes us laugh, share strategies and most importantly, share in a common experience when our worlds of work and school can seem so far apart. Don’t merely see video games as the enemy. See it as another means of connecting with your kids. Surely what matters more than the how, is the conversations that arise and sense of togetherness we get in the end? But don’t just take our word for it…

My father had a common parenting style for his generation. He came home from work, sat in his chair until dinner, then after dinner he watched TV until time for bed. You won’t notice much interaction with me in there.

I’m not downing my dad here; he worked hard and needed to unwind after a long day. Add that to the fact that his generation just didn’t spend a ton of time with their kids during the week.

Well, once I became a dad I was determined not to do that. I wanted to spend quality time with my kids and connect with them. I love sports; I played basketball, baseball and football. I was really hoping my kids would like sports as well. That would make it very easy to connect with them. My 5 yr old loves sports but my 11 yr old can take it or leave it. So I’m always looking for ways to connect with him.

This past Christmas my son received an Android tablet from his Grandmother and he LOVES playing games on it. I noticed that he was playing Clash of Clans. This is a game that I played at one time in the past but hadn’t played in a while. He was asking me for strategies and whether I could get the game back on my phone so we could play together. YES!! As a dad, you know how it is when your teen/pre-teen actually wants to do something with you. I helped him build his city and then created a clan for us. He even had his friends from school join our clan.

I know we aren’t reading Chaucer together but we are spending quality time together and that’s what counts.

When he is an adult he will remember these times we had together and hopefully this will influence his relationship with his children. The importance of dads spending quality time with their children has been proven time and again by many studies.

Here are some ideas for connecting with your kids by playing video games:

Find a game you both enjoy playing. This is very important – you should both have fun playing the game, otherwise your child will soon pick up that you’re not enjoying it. It is probably easier if you let him pick a list of games he likes and then pick one from the list that you may like.
Find a game that has direct competition. My son loves Trivia Crack so we play against each other quite a bit…usually in the same room. Competition can be fun and great for bonding – sometimes that is. You have to be careful here if either of you have a tendency to be too competitive. NBA Jam for Android lets you actually play together using wifi when you’re in the same room.
Make An Event Of It. You can create your own “tournaments” and really get into it. My son and I have these “raiding parties”. We get some snacks and hang out together raiding villages in Clash of Clans. The family that raids together, stays together right?

These are just a few ways to connect with your kids by playing games. Now, here are some suggested games for you to try out:

Clash of Clans